Florida will lean on focus, experience while trying to end series in four games
The Florida Panthers are hoping the 2023-24 NHL Season will come to a close on Saturday night at Rogers Place.
Their opponents in the Stanley Cup Final, the Edmonton Oilers, would like to extend the postseason by at least another few days.
Florida enters Saturday’s Game 4 in hold of a commanding 3-0 lead in the best-of-7 championship series.
It’s been a much different experience for the Panthers during this year’s final than it was last season.
When Florida lost to the Vegas Golden Knights in five games last June, several key players were dealing with significant injuries. It wasn’t a match of equals at that point.
This time around the Panthers are seemingly at full strength, though there are surely issues that guys are dealing with that nobody outside the locker room knows about, but from an outsider’s perspective, everyone looks good to go.
It’s a different story for Edmonton.
Much like Florida last postseason, the Oilers are dealing with injuries to key players Darnell Nurse and Evander Kane, among others.
While it’s unfortunate, it’s also part of the game.
There will be no sympathy from the Panthers after what they had to endure last year only to come up three wins shy of a championship.
Now the tables have turned, and its Florida with an opportunity to put a wounded opponent out of its misery.
One thing that is certain is that the Oilers won’t go down without a fight.
Powered by some of the best offensive players on the planet, nobody would be shocked to see Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl take over a couple game and turn this into a long series after all.
Here are Florida’s projected lines and pairings for Game 4 in Edmonton:
Evan Rodrigues – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Carter Verhaeghe – Sam Bennett – Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Vladimir Tarasenko
Kyle Okposo – Kevin Stenlund – Steven Lorentz
Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola – Brandon Montour
Oliver Ekman-Larsson – Dmitry Kulikov
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